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A while ago, Sjacie started a Mission flowchart, but never finished it. He hasn't returned since December, so I'm putting out an open request for help.
I'd like to get the flowchart finished, so I made a list of all points which need to be verified.
There are 5 main tests, with a total of 22 individual points which need to be verified.

If you would like to help, simply verify the information marked with with question marks.

If what is posted here is correct, just a short message saying so will do.

If something is incorrect, please give as much detail as possible as to what doesn't match your results.

The starting point overall is Act 2, so a saved game named Return to Steelport would help greatly. If you want to tackle multiple tests, most tests can be done after another, but some require reloading, and I've noted at which points you should make a new saved game to reload later.

You don't need to do all 21 tests, if 10 people pick one mission pair each, it's not too much work. A saved game in between the tests will allow you to do some of the later tests.

If you have a saved game which matches any of the available missions for a test, you can start midway - this is why I've broken it into 22 points.

Unless otherwise noted, these can be completed in this order.

Reload and Save notes can be used to skip sections. Dead-end tests are listed first.

To start with, after Return to Steelportthere should be 4 missions in the cellphone: Trojan Whores (Shaundi), Snatch (Zimos), Cyber Blazing (Kinzie), Insurance Fraud (Angel)
We need to know exactly what happens after each arc. First, do all the Activity missions. After doing all activities, there should be 4 missions listed in the cellphone: Trojan Whores (Shaundi), Painting a Picture (Zimos), Phone Phreak (Kinzie), Face Your Fear (Angel)

These last 3 can be done in any order, using save E as the starting point.

Face Your Three Way Beat Down - Test I

Continuing from Save E

Complete Air Steelport and Zombie Attack

Save the game - this is Save F

Complete Face Your Fear.

After Face Your Fear, the only available mission should be A Remote Chance (?17)

Complete A Remote Chance

After A Remote Chance, the only available mission should be 3 Count Beat Down (?18)

Face Your Three Way Beat Down - Test II

ReloadSave F, with Face Your Fear and A Remote Chance available
Or 'Reload Save E and complete Air Steelport and Zombie Attack

Complete A Remote Chance

After A Remote Chance, the only available mission should be Face Your Fear (?19)

Complete Face Your Fear.

After Face Your Fear, the only available mission should be 3 Count Beat Down (?20)

Complete 3 Count Beat Down and Murderbrawl XXXI

After Murderbrawl XXXI, Three Way should be available (?21)

Three Way - Test III

Reload Save E

Complete all missions except Zombie Attack.

After Zombie Attack, Three Way should be available (?22)

If less than three are wrong, and helpers can give me details about when the wrong missions, that should be enough information to assemble a complete flowchart. If there are more than a couple wrong, I may need to write another series of tests.

This is going to be super annoying to test out. I'll see if I can find the time to try this out in the next few days. If I can use cheats, I should be able to fly through the first few levels to get to Act 2 quickly.

It occurs to me that these instructions could be made simpler, I'll do some rewording now.

(8 mins later...)

Ok, done. I had worded it so the start of the arcs were the start of testing, but since the activities themselves do not need verification, they can be done before the tests.

As it happens I've just finished playing through the game to the new test start-point (all activities completed, 4 missions in cellphone). So soon I'll be running doing the primary Act 2 tests myself.

But I'll still require third party confirmation in case I'm wrong.

It also occurs to me that I should probably have stated the complete game state before each test. I'll do that in my results, the reword the test. (Sounds like I learned my testing methodology from Mythbusters.)

0) True (I initially forgot this test, as well as a couple of others.)

1) True

2) True

3) True

4) True

5a) False

5b) True

6) True

7) True

8) True

9) True

10) True

11) True

I just started the "My name is Party.die" test and completed Convoy Decoy.

Unfortunately, playing Saints Row: The Third for hours on end has apparently overheated the PSU in my computer. I'm waiting for it to cool down to verify it's dead. While I had a temperature monitor set to shut down my computer if it exceeded 90 degrees, that only applied to the CPU and MB, and not the PSU temp.

While there is a small chance that the PSU overload damaged other components, but hopefully my data is fine. I've just gotta replace the PSU. Again.

Luckily, I moved 2gb of screenshots over to my external harddrive yesterday, so I can spent the downtime sorting them and preparing them to upload.

If anyone wants to continue testing, starting with the test named "My name is Party.die" would be the most helpful.

edit: Updated again to compress chart. Splits are now represented differently, with the "main" trunk continuing straight

One interesting thing I noticed is that in the menu, the "exit/retry mission" option says "exit/retry stronghold" for the 4 strongholds, including Hit the Powder room. So if there was any doubt left that Powder is a stronghold, that is definitive in-game proof.

The numbers in brackets are the number of missions in each arc. Activities are not counted.

I have not yet played through the STAG missions, but there appear to be two groups of 4 missions, which would make the most sense as all other arcs have 4 missions.

(I've counted "Return to Steelport" is counted as a morningstar mission, and the counted choices in Three Way as a Luchadore and a STAG mission, it rounds in out to an even 4 missions per arc.)

I noticed a trend that after the activities, there is a cutscene mission, followed by a stronghold, followed by a "boss fight". I also noticed that there is always one tangential mission in each arc. In the Pierce/Loren arc, Takeover the City fits this description, although it appears in sequence while the others are unlocked as part of a parallel arc.

I'm interesting in trying to see if there is a parallel to this pattern in the STAG missions, to try to determine at which point the STAG stronghold would have occurred - it would have had to have been a mission which took place at the PR Center. Ideally after a cutscene and before a boss fight.

Something that didn't occur to me before is that "Final" mission in each arc always has a choice at the end.

The mid-mission choice in My Name is Cyrus Temple shouldn't be included in this - all others appear at the very end of the mission.

The STAG arc does have one "cutscene only" mission, in the form of the "Stilwater Blues" phonecall, it doesn't quite match the pattern. Nyte Blayde's Return is the only mission to really have a Siege on the PR Center, and contains something all Strongholds have: a unique interior which is never seen again. Therefore, Nyte Blayde's Return was originally intended to be the STAG Stronghold mission, which means STAG party, with a end-mission choice was going to be the Finale of that Arc.

Speculation: While they originally planned to have all arcs follow the same pattern, they couldn't get the storyline to match the pattern, and so dropped the STAG stronghold. It wouldn't have really made sense anyway, since STAG would certainly attempt to take it back.

Perhaps this is also why Powder was removed - although more likely it was just due to the merging of Viola's and Loren's gangs.

IMO, they should have left the pattern intact, maybe that's just because I desire a cleaner flowchart, but I don't really like the storyline of Killbane taking over anyway.

They probably pushed the Luchadores conclusion into Act 3 due to the post-deckers cutscene of Matt leaving, but the solution to that is to have deckers.die unlock Night Blayde's Return and have STAG Party unlock A Remote Chance, which allows the storyline to continue to make sense and the Luchadores Arc and the first STAG Arc to conclude in Act 2. This leaves Act 3 as a linear STAG epilogue. (I'll make a draft flowchart of this progression)

Three Way could still have had the same choice, with Killbane being in hiding during Act 3 until then.